


Wasteland, Baby

by hoechlinanddylan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Because seriously what the hell was that, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), First Kiss, Fix it for the last 5 minutes, Fix-It, M/M, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, serious spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 12:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18620419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoechlinanddylan/pseuds/hoechlinanddylan
Summary: "Try not to do anything stupid while I'm gone.."____Written out of spite and my undying love for these boys.





	Wasteland, Baby

Bucky could see in Steve’s eyes that this was it. He could see it in his shoulders, in the tense way he held them, set in determination, in resignation. He could see it in the way he kept accidentally brushing up against Wilson as they were walking to the clearing in the woods where the Hulk- _Banner_ \- was setting up the quantum platform. He could see it in the way he made it a point to talk to everyone he knew in the last 24 hours, after Stark’s funeral, to all the surviving heroes. Steve had gone out of his way to make meaningful conversation with Lang, Thor before he left, the witch - _Maximoff,_ even the spider boy. Imparting a vague, optimistic one-liner about survival and pride to each of them that everyone nodded towards, taking it as classic Captain America wisdom that Bucky knew was utter bullshit.

 

Steve was leaving. He had said goodbye in his own, vague way to everyone and everything. Besides Bucky. Steve hadn’t even met his eyes since he’d been back. Since he watched his arm disappear in dust and caught Steve’s confused, concerned gaze across the Wakandan forest, blinked, and woke up 5 years later. Familiar. Bucky was used to time lapses. Bucky _wasn’t_ used to Steve avoiding him, avoiding his 101 year old (was it 106 now?) gaze that knew what the quick glances away and mumbled excuses meant. He attributed them to a smaller Steve, one who had tried to fit in with the other Brooklyn grade schoolers almost nine decades ago, keeping a barely lit cigarette deep in his threadbare jacket, out of Bucky’s view.

 

Steve was hiding something. And he hadn’t been hiding something in Wakanda. So, it had come to pass in the last five years, something recent. Something to do with finality, and getting closure with his friends. Something that he believed would upset Bucky.

 

Something to do with the fact that Steve looked down and clenched his jaw when Banner explained to Wilson that Steve’s indefinite time in the past would feel like a couple seconds to the three men standing around the platform.

 

Steve hugged Wilson. Tight, delayed from the average by 2.4 seconds, fingers digging into Sam’s shoulder, detected by the slight loss of blood in his fingertips. Definitely a goodbye.

 

Steve swallowed and turned to Bucky, his blue eyes steady, apologetic, and ready for reprimanding. So, he _knew_ that Bucky knew, then.

 

Bucky was incapable of crying involuntarily now. His handlers were thorough with his pain tolerance and management training. He had watched the loved ones at Stark’s funeral -tears flowing freely down their faces, breathing irregular, tremors flowing through them- with an odd sense of wonder and disconnect. But despite not being wired that way anymore, Bucky found his throat getting slightly tighter, his lungs pressing in just enough to be noticeable, like his body was gearing up for tears and didn’t know they wouldn’t come.

 

Steve’s eyes told him he wanted his approval, told him that he was sorry, told him that he had to take a chance at happiness. A part of Bucky -the part that knew seventeen different ways to kill a man with a safety pin- wanted to tell him no. Wanted to tell Steve that he couldn’t go, that if he went Bucky would never forgive him, that Steve swore to protect him and therefore couldn’t leave, that he could find happiness right here, in this time, if he just gave Bucky a chance. A chance to be a real person.

 

But the part that grew up with Steve, the part that gave his extra pay from the docks to Sarah Rogers so she could get another wool blanket and pair of socks for her son when their boiler went out in ‘33, the part of Bucky that couldn’t bear to see Steve miserable…

 

“Try not to do anything stupid while I’m gone,” Steve joked.  Bucky heard Wilson quietly huff in laughter off to the side, but he heard the question in the familiar warning, saw the desperation in his cornflower eyes.

 

Bucky remembered almost everything these days, thanks to the princess, so he knew the response. He forced his lungs to expand in a regular pattern, forced his lips to smirk and eyes to crinkle, his head to tilt, just so, to give off the illusion of ease and acceptance. “How can I?” he recited the line, that had echoed in the blood-filled air in his tent and above the metal operating table and in the early days of the Chair. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

 

Steve smiled and reached for him, and Bucky knew that he had played his role perfectly, as he always did. He allowed himself 1.3 seconds more in the embrace than was normal, then pulled back, stepping away from the platform, feeling cold.

 

Banner flicked switches, and panels whirred, coming to life. Bucky stared at Steve, and Steve stared resolutely forward. A countdown began and at the last second, Steve’s eyes flickered to his. Bucky’s lips started to part, a last minute plea, or order forming on his lips.

 

There was a blinding light, and then afterimages stood in place of his best friend.

 

“Okay, returning home in five..”

 

Bucky forced himself to do a quick surveillance to distract the building coldness forming in the pit of his stomach.

 

“Four..”

 

An empty bench near the water, a slight breeze rustling the trees, a raven nesting in the oak 45 degrees southwest of where he was standing. He wasn’t worthy of Steve anyway. Not now, not seven years ago, not in 1938. Not ever.

 

“Three…”

 

Wilson, Banner, himself. No other signs of human life within 100 yards. Steve was pure, and arrogant, and optimistic, and stubborn, and compassionate, and self-righteous, and self-sacrificing. Bucky remembered Carter as being firm but kind, strong-willed and ambitious and looked at Steve with gentle eyes. He deserved her. They deserved each other.

 

“Two..”

 

Chirping, water gurgling, Wilson shifting onto his right leg. He had learned a long time ago that life wasn’t fair, that sometimes shitty things happen and they don’t get resolved or avenged or corrected. Steve had always been the silver-lining guy, but he had never bought it. But he had thought maybe...after they had all come back...when it looked like no one was gonna force them into a jail cell...that maybe...but that was over now. And now he needed a new mission. Maybe Wilson had an idea, as it seemed he was Steve’s unofficial second when Bucky first saw them together. Maybe Bucky should protect him, protect the one person Steve cares about on this planet other than him. It could be his new mission. Maybe...maybe...

 

“One..”

 

A blinding light, and Bucky kept his eyes wide and drawn to the center of the platform. Because it couldn’t be...he was _sure…_

 

“Damn, Cap, only you could grow a beard and style your hair in 5 seconds,” Wilson greeted, calm as ever. “Super-serum works wonders.”

 

“Everything went okay, Steve?” Banner asked, powering down the machine.

 

Steve looked over at Bucky, gaze piercing for a moment, and then smiled over at the doctor. “Yeah. Couple hiccups but the stones and the hammer are back where they belong.” He stepped down from the platform, feet crunching softly on the grass. He was indeed sporting a beard and differently cut hair, like a tamer, more polished version of the nomad look he had in the battle of Wakanda. His hands were empty of the infinity stones and Thor’s hammer, but was holding a large circular brown bag.

 

“How long were you gone for?” Wilson asked, crossing his arms.

 

Steve stepped up the man and zipped open the bag. “Just about two months. Enough to convince Peggy to have Stark make an exact replica of my shield. For a ‘museum’, she’d told him.” He took the shield out of the bag.

 

Wilson’s eyebrows shot up. “You _talked_ to Peggy? Ain’t that against Time Travel 101?”

 

“Mmm-hmm,” Steve agreed. “I needed to confirm something. Unimportant right now, though.” He passed the shield to Wilson. “Here.” Wilson took it gingerly, eyebrows furrowed, then stood there. “Try it on.” Wilson slipped his arm through the holder, turning the disc this way and that, fresh, bright paint gleaming in the sun, like the beacon of hope it was. “How does it feel?”

 

“Like someone else’s,” Wilson responded immediately.

 

Steve smiled, understandingly. “It’s yours now.”

 

Wilson’s eyes snapped up to Steve’s for a long moment, searching them. Then he returned to the shield with new eyes, hand gently stroking the stripes. “I don’t know if I can do that, Steve.”

 

“I do,” the man said with unwavering conviction.

 

Wilson looked to him, eyebrow raised, as if asking him what he thought of all this. Bucky’s heart and mind were racing, downloading and processing every bit of information, but he nodded. He didn’t know Wilson very well but he could feel in his bones that having him pick up Steve’s mantle was a great decision. Wilson smiled, lifted his chin, and took a deep breath, chest rising and falling slowly, accepting his new role with honor and respect. Yeah, this man would be perfect.

 

Steve then turned to Bucky, walking until he was about a foot away. Bucky’s brain was basically buffering, trying to offer up an explanation for why his best friend was standing before him, apparently after two months in his ideal fantasy. He had had everything he ever wanted, everything he ever deserved...so why was he here?

 

“You left,” Bucky muttered, eyes narrowed and arms crossed.

 

“I did,” Steve nodded, century old blue eyes dissecting him. There was something different about them, a change from when he had last seen them a minute ago. They were lighter, clearer, somehow.

 

“You weren’t coming back,” Bucky insisted.

 

“No.”

 

“You said you found her. Carter. Spent two months with her.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“So, what happened?” He shouldn’t be here. Not if it meant he was going to be miserable for the next fifty years, thinking about “what ifs” and “should haves”, feeling like a man lost in time.

 

Steve swallowed and shook his head slightly. “I dropped off the stones and the hammer. And then went to 1952, to before Peggy got married. And explained everything to her.”

 

“What? Cap, do you know what you’ve done?!” Banner interrupted. Bucky almost forgot he was there, to be quite honest. “You’ve seriously adjusted the timeline! Now she knows you survived and all of her actions will be skewed. We have no way of knowing-”

 

“I know. I didn’t care,” Steve told him smoothly, still looking at Bucky. “I just never would have forgiven myself if I didn’t take a chance and do what I had wished I could do every day for the last decade.”

 

The doctor went quiet- stunned, probably. Bucky swallowed, shifting. “So, what happened?” he asked again.

 

Steve ran a hand through his hair, half-smiling ruefully. “It took me two weeks to realize that thirteen years was enough time for me to get used to the technologies and advancements of the 21st century. That maybe I’d romanticised the past some, and the number of people with limited freedoms and liberties in the ‘50s were quite a bit more than I was comfortable with.

 

“It took me another four weeks to realize that Peggy and I were both two different people outside of 1945 and didn’t know each other anymore. Maybe we never really did. That maybe I deified the first woman I fell in love with, and maybe that love was semi-built on stress from the war, treating me as an equal….losing you.” Bucky unfolded his arms; he could feel a slight tremor going through his right while his left remained cold and steady.

 

“And then,” Steve took a step closer. He could count the man’s eyelashes. “It took me two more weeks to realize that I was an idiot.” Bucky opened his mouth. “Shut up, Buck,” Steve rolled his eyes, lips twitching. “I’m getting somewhere.” Bucky pressed his lips back together. “It took me two more weeks to realize that the ‘home’ that I was yearning for, that sense of familiarity, that desire to connect with someone who _got it_ , to be looked at it like I was special but not because of what was coursing in my veins...that that opportunity was standing right here, frozen in time, waiting for me to come back to him.”

 

Bucky swallowed again, looking away, the burning passion and _goodness_ directed toward getting too much. “Took you two months to realize that, huh?” he joked, though a slight hint of bitterness bled through against his will. He needed to check that; he was getting sloppy.

 

“Buck, I’m so sorry,” Steve whispered fiercely. “I had to make sure, you know that right? If there was a chance I could have had that life that I lost seventy years ago, you know I _had_ to, right?”

 

And Bucky did know. That Steve had spent the last decade basically alone and lost and bitterly nostalgic, dreaming of the last time he felt whole. Bucky didn’t have a lot of clarity over the last eighty years but when he did….he could relate. But it still hurt. “We came back, both me and Wilson, and...it’s like you didn’t fucking care.”

 

“Buck-”

 

“Steve, everyone around us...within the last twenty-four hours everyone has been reunited with their family, their friends, desperately clinging to the people they thought they’d have to live without. It was five seconds for us, but five _years_ for you and...you gave us pat on the back and went to help with Stark’s funeral. It’s like you’d moved on. And then when I realized what you were doing, I thought….I thought that we no longer...”

 

Steve grabbed his face in his large hands, forcing Bucky to stare into his watery, apologetic eyes. “I knew that if I spent more than a second talking to you, looking at you..I would never go. And as soon as I knew that time travel was possible...Bucky, I _had_ to.”

 

Bucky nodded, as much as he could, his head still being held hostage, and forced his chest to expand again. “Yeah, I know,” he whispered.

 

“But,” Steve swallowed audibly. “I gave it a shot, and realized that if that life was an ever an option, it was for the man that went into the ice all those years ago. Not the man that stepped on a bridge in D.C. and realized his best friend was still alive in a time where he had more options.”

 

Bucky licked his lips, trying to control his heart-rate. “And what are those?”

 

Steve gazed at him for a moment, studying. His jaw clenched and Bucky saw the decision form a fraction of a second before Steve closed the small distance and pressed his lips to his.

 

Bucky immediately had to force his proximity reflex, his fight-or-flight (mostly fight) response, to deactivate before he accidentally ripped out his best friend’s throat. But then Steve tilted his head a few degrees to the right, chapped but soft lips pursing further against Bucky’s, and Bucky relaxed against him. His eyes closed and mouth parted slightly, hands coming up to fist in the red, white, and blue kevlar covering Steve’s chest. He lightly ran his tongue against Steve’s bottom lip, causing the other to sigh softly, allowing him to deepen the kiss.

 

Bucky got lost in it, drunk on it, feeling whole for once in a very, very long time. His right hand drifted slowly down and around, hand spreading against Steve’s broad back, pulling him closer and flush against him. Steve’s thumbs started to slightly massage his temples, throwing his senses into overdrive, and he inhaled through his nose sharply, pressing closer still.

 

“As the new Captain America, I’m vetoing any and all gross ass PDA in the middle of the woods when other people are present.”

 

Bucky extended his right arm toward Wilson, middle finger pointed up, still gently acquainting his tongue with the inside of Steve’s mouth.

 

“You can’t do that to me now. Steve, tell him he can't do that now."

 

Steve pressed his lips against his, once, twice, thrice...and then pulled away, red lips pulling into a smile. Goddamn, this man was a looker. “He kind of outranks you now, you know.”

 

Bucky rolled his eyes. “It’s a bullshit title, and you know it. You didn’t earn your rank because of your blue booty shorts and oppressive optimism. Although maybe you should have.”

 

Steve laughed. “He’ll earn it.”

 

Bucky sighed and looked over at Sam, still holding the shining shield. “Yeah, probably.”

 

“Uh, so are you retired now, Cap...Steve?” Banner asked, still near the quantum panels. Again, Bucky forgot he was there. He was surprisingly unassuming for a eleven foot tall green monster.

 

“That’s the plan,” Steve answered, shrugging.

 

“What will you do?”

 

He turned back towards Bucky, still in his arms. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got a relationship I guess I should commit myself to.”

 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Oh, is that what this is?”

 

“Mm-hmm.”

 

“Well, alright, then,” Bucky conceded, throwing his arms around Steve’s neck, unable to keep the grin off his face. His eyes travelled down to Steve’s mouth. “But, you’re keeping the beard, right?”

 

Steve tilted his head, smirking. “You know what? It’s kinda growing on me.”

 

Bucky rolled his eyes, and leaned in to capture his love’s lips in another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Are you as pissed off as I am? Let's talk: hoechlinanddylan.tumblr.com
> 
> Or leave a comment here! :)


End file.
